Every three months, the German Record Critics' Award honours the best and most interesting classical albums, making it one of the most important awards in the classical music industry.
The 153 current critics, divided into 32 expert juries, reviewed all the new releases on the record market from the last quarter and compiled a longlist of 283 titles.
Twenty-eight winning titles have now been selected from this pool of nominees, including one in the contemporary music category: Jeremias Schwarzer's album New Recorder Concertos, featuring recorder concertos written for him by Liza Lim, Iris ter Schiphorst, Dai Fujikura and Samir Odeh-Tamimi.
Schwarzer was supported by the renowned conductors Alexander Liebreich, Peter Rundel, Jonathan Stockhammer and Rupert Huber, as well as the orchestras Ensemble Resonanz, Münchener Kammerorchester, Bamberger Symphoniker and SWR Symphonieorchester.
As the winner of the current best albums list, the album is one of four winning albums in the contemporary music category for 2025. It was released by the New Focus label in New York and can be listened to in full length free of charge as a non-commercial project here:
https://www.newfocusrecordings.com/catalogue/jeremias-schwarzer-new-recorder-concertos
The following is an excerpt from the jury's statement (Nina Polaschegg):
Often marginalised as a beginner's instrument, the recorder has long since arrived in contemporary music, mostly in the experimental-improvisatory field." Jeremias Schwarzer has devoted himself intensively to new compositions for this instrument for years. He and four different ensembles present works by four composers that are virtuosic in many respects yet very differently designed. The pieces provide contrasting insights into the diverse possibilities of recorder virtuosity, as they pursue very different aesthetic approaches..
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